Well, color us disappointed. After nearly one year since the last update, the team behind Kik Messenger on Windows Phone recently revealed (via an email correspondence) that they don’t have a speedy proposal for a Windows Phone 8 update. (The app does work for Windows Phone 8, though it fails to take advantage of any new features and there are a few lingering issues with reliability).

Reader of the site Jonathan S. emailed support over the need for a Windows Phone 8 update, noting how notifications have become unreliable (true) and there haven’t been any updates or additions since February of 2012 (also true).

A member of the Kik Team, Charlotte, replied with the following:

“Hey there, Thanks for your message! We don't have any immediate plans to develop a version of Kik for Windows Phone 8 - but you never know what the future may hold!

Stay tuned to our blog (http://kik.com/blog/), Twitter (@Kik), and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/kikplaynice) for news of any updates to the Kik app.

Thanks! The Kik team”

The good news there, if you were to find any, is Kik is not ruling out a Windows Phone 8 version in the future. But if you were hoping to get an update any day now for the service, well, you will be disappointed.

We know resources are tight at such companies—after all, when was the last time you saw an ad in Kik? So developing on nascent platforms can be a struggle. With that said, it’s still not a good sign to see such a popular (and Windows Phone Central endorsed) messaging app go by the wayside right as we’re hitting our stride.

Microsoft…Nokia…you want to step up here and maybe lend them a hand?

Windows Phone 8 brings with it access to the lockscreen for notifications, detailed info and a doublewide tile, in addition to improved alerts and faster app performance. Apps like Kik Messenger are perfect for the new OS, which seems to be gaining ground now more than ever.

Reader comments

Check out WeChat. It has been kept up to date and has everything incuding voice, text, location, video, and more! I would suggest Line but it needs an update. But yeah, those are some pretty good apps! Also TalkBox is freaking awesome!!

Hmm, kinda dissapointed now. Really hope they are going to continue.
Currently there arent many messaging apps and almost none support the new WP8 system well. Allthough Kik is working fine on my WP7 device, but i was hoping for some new WP8 features.
So what messengers are left for us? Whatsapp has yet to come with an update. Of course WLM and facebook are included in the platform, but Skype is still pretty damn worthless, so i'm wondering. Kik was THE Whatsapp alternative, but now i'm thinking i might need to switch if they aren't going to support it anyways.

Just the general tone and this sentence in particular: " We don't have any immediate plans to develop a version of Kik for Windows Phone 8"
If I as avid WP user wan't sure, people who are not familar with WP7 vs WP8 will definitely suspect it's not for WP8 from the article. And apparently I am not the only one here.

I think it would have been more clear if you started with the article saying it works on WP8 but doesn't use some of the new OS features. Just my two cents.

It runs well, but I've often notice you need an occasional device restart (both on WP7 and WP8) to keep notifications coming in, in addition to the Live Tile not registering a new message. I've literally seen the toast notification come in but the Tile remains unchanged--very frustrating (and I say that as someone who really likes Kik).

I agree; I find it faster and easier to use than WhatsApp. However, the toast / live tile sync seems to be a common problem with other apps too. Even the WPCentral app's live tile counter doesn't reset after opening the app. Overall, it is getting better. However, I feel that this is one reason we don't have a notification center. Just imagine if the notification center was updating properly and wasn't in sync with the toast and live tiles. That would be a mess and very confusing.

I don't get why they can't make tiles work properly. I mean that's supposed to be one of the main selling points. I'm still going nuts over the unreliable tiles in WP7, even after a hard reset and in all different phones I have used (LG Quantum, Dell Venue Pro and currently Samsung Focus Flash). I'm this close to switching to a different OS.

I've used it for a while with a buddy who was on android and was visiting the Philippines. The app was ok. Nothing special. Other than seeing that he is actually in the process of responding. So to me it was a pretty basic massaging app. So really how much effort can their possibly be in supporting this app? Its not like its some complicated game.
Maybe Jay Bennett should just bust out killer messaging app and be don with it. Seriously, you're already crowd sourcing feedback. Make him a hero.

There are no issues, there are only opportunities. I'll take it one step further. This is Mobile Nations, right? Have Jay work with his ios and android counterpart who has some programming background to put together ad submit a cross platform messaging app. And got someone over at crackberry? Include them. Have it done by July. Launch on all platforms. Charge 99¢. Make it pretty, get noticed. Thank me later.

Because not every phone can use Facebook messanger. At least in the case of Whatsapp, it can run on dumbphones and use substanially less data than "always-on" messanger services. Those are/were important considerations in the developing world.

Because it's not dependable...at least not for me. I don't know how many times I don't get notifications or people don't get my messages. I used Kik for a long time, then stopped getting notifications. I've been using Skype messenger for a while now. It seems to be fixed for me.

About nine out of ten of my contacts don't use Facebook or use it very minimally, whatsapp is definitely our solution. Im sure there are lots of 'social networks' like mine which have helped whatsapp rise in popularity

Not everybody uses facebook or have necessary contacts in facebook. And not everybody (including me) can afford a $20/mo SMS plan. Why should I pay for something that should be free? (yes, kik and whatsapp are not really free since they use data, but you get the point).

Kik was/is fairly unreliable so I dropped it for WhatsApp, which was even worse and more of a battery drain. But when WhatsApp came back in December it has worked pretty much perfectly. I'm getting all notifications and messages are being sent right away. I think I only had one time when the program stalled on me.
Such is life in WP8...

Sigh. What is sad is good apps never get shown to users. BC MSFT sucks at promoting apps Example paperkarma. Great app, good reviews, never seen ms highlight it. So it got released and never updated BC no one downloads it.

Paperkarma. Never heard of it until now,or even seen it reviewed here on WP Central, but just did a search in the store and it seems to be a useful app. And it's cross platform, so kudos to the developer for bringing it to WP. I will check it out :)

Well, I don't find this surprising at all. As I said in another comment, companies like this are hesitent to begin with, and Microsoft REALLY needs to step up their support with developers. It seems ever since Brandon Watson left for Amazon, developer support with WP has dipped, and certainly the preception isn't looking good. While yes adoption is increasing, that doesn't mean it's increasing at a faster rate. We all know that people who have invested in another platform/ecosystem, they want the apps available in the WP ecosystem that just aren't there. It's discouraging at best.

KIK doesn't even have an app for Windows 8. I think more changes are being made in the backend to unify both platforms. Devs are probably aware.
Dev's aren't going to spend $$ developing on two different platforms. MS knows that and we should have a true answer shortly.

Well, I'm pretty much stuck with viber at this point. For some reason I never got the confirmation SMS on whatsapp, and literally none of my friends have kik. There's like two, who know about it. Damn shame IMHO. I'm hoping they'll fix Skype so I'll be able to ditch all of these apps, bit that doesn't seem likely in the near future :/

I guess I don't understand what all the hoopla is over these types of apps. Why not just text or sms? That always seems to work just fine. I don't know anyone who uses these thrid party chat clients. Only benefit I can see is that you don't have to "pay" for texts. I used Straight Talk where texts were free, and now ATT Shared Data Plan where texs are unlmited as part of the plan. I thought texts were pretty much included in most plans now days. Anyway, too bad. I could never see myself using something like this, but the more apps that are widly used that are not coming to WP it not great news.

I don't (because I don't really have many friends) but I have a friend who uses Kik quite a bit to communicate with people she might not want to give her mobile number to and at least one of the main ones is in Australia. International texting isn't cheap.

"I guess I don't understand what all the hoopla is over these types of apps. Why not just text or sms? "

You obviously don't know or correspond with people overseas...and while SMS may be included in most plans, that doesn't mean they are unlimited. In fact, most don't have unlimited SMS because iti's $20 extra.

Another benefit: if you have multiple mobile phones, you don't need a phone number with Kik.

They have been blaming Microsoft for extremely poor live tile update and inability of WP to "refresh" data after a toast notification. Basically, I get a toast notification, but the live tile almost never update to show a text. And sometimes even after opening the app, it could take several minutes to actually show the new text. It's not surprising if they have been losing customers because it's simply not reliable for some of the functions.

Personally, I'd like to see MS roll more of these services into the native messaging. I realize these companies need to make money, so maybe you could pay for the option to include it. Built in messenger and Facebook chat is nice, but it would be great to get everything integrated.

Is there a cross platform messenger app that support lock screen notifications yet?
I like WhatsApp, which i used after Kik no longer got updated and worked poorly. I just really wish it had lock screen notifications.

What's app is not an alternative to kik. What'sapp needs a phone number. My daughter has a galaxy player and her friends have iPod touches. You can't use whatsapp on either of those devices since they don't have phone numbers. We really need kik messenger to work!

How quickly they forget. It wasn't long ago that KiK was praising Windows Phone for expanding their user base...even with Android and iOS users. I guess it's like Jay-Z says, "on to the next one". I've been playing with TalkBox lately and I'm anxious for Skype to come to the table with some awesome sauce.